


if endings are beginnings

by 24Carrots



Series: 'Til I Make the Stars Align [2]
Category: Schitt's Creek (TV) RPF
Genre: AU-Everyone is Single, Ficlet, M/M, Pining, So is Noah, Sweaters, The show is ending I'm emo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-02-01 06:49:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21425092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/24Carrots/pseuds/24Carrots
Summary: Noah decides which wardrobe item he's keeping from the show. It's (probably) not what you think.
Relationships: Dan Levy/Noah Reid
Series: 'Til I Make the Stars Align [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818247
Comments: 39
Kudos: 95





	if endings are beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t like RPF? I invite you to use the back button.
> 
> Set in a fictional, alternate universe where Dan and Noah are single. Production timelines and details handwaved as needed. 
> 
> Title from [Endings are Beginnings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmcec3FzK8Y) by Jamie Cullum because I’m trying to keep it classy, okay?

This is all really coming to an end. That’s the thought that stops Noah cold when he sees the collection of garment racks gathered on the sound stage, ready to be packed up for good. It’s not like he hasn’t had plenty of time to adjust. He’s known the end is coming longer than anyone but Eugene. Since a cold night in December, when he woke up at 2 a.m. to a text from Dan.

** _I decided Season 6 is the last one._ **

_ Wow. _

_ Wanna talk about it?_

The dots had appeared and disappeared a few times before another message.

** _Another time._ **

** _Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you._ **

_ It’s ok. I’m up._

He didn't received a reply. And he hadn’t been up, but he’s never required a late-night text message to lose sleep over Dan.

Things have been weird since the winter Up Close and Personal tour. They had… He doesn’t even know what it was. A fling? A thing? Finally fucking something anyway. On the tour and in between, whenever they were both in town. But then Dan went into heavy pre-production mode and so… that was that.

And then filming started for Season 6 and Dan said… all the things he said. About his responsibilities as a show runner and the pressure of the final season and needing to stay focused and keeping things professional and. So.

So Noah’s standing in front of a gradient of blue shirts on a rack with a PA hovering around him and he’s supposed to pick the one thing he wants to keep. And the PA—Aaron is his name—is supposed to mark it on some master list and then Noah can take it home. The thing is, they are just blue shirts. They’re nice, most of them. A few have a subtle texture or a faint pattern. And Dan told him the baseball uniform was his already. And the Cabaret costume—if he wanted it—is MIA. Not part of this. So.

“I don’t even know if I’m going to keep something,” Noah says.

“Why don’t I give you a minute to look through them,” Aaron replies with a smile that fails to mask his annoyance at how much of his day Noah is taking up.

Noah nods, happy to have a minute alone. “Thanks, man.”

It seems crazy not to keep one of Patrick’s blue shirts. They are so much a part of his character. His uniform. They were Noah’s idea too. He’d shown up in one at the audition, an extra button undone because he’d met Dan a few times and… Anyway it had been the correct choice. He teased Dan about it later when they were—whatever they were—about adding Noah to the credits under costumes. It didn't take long to figure out how to get Dan in the mood to wreck him.

But when Noah thinks of what it means to play Patrick, he doesn’t really think about Patrick’s shirts. For him, playing Patrick is fundamentally about David. About the way Patrick finds himself in David. About the way Dan portrays David with that gorgeous, tender edge. About the way Dan uses wardrobe to express David’s feelings, both to Patrick and about Patrick.

There is a rack of David’s wardrobe pieces pushed back against the wall. He walks over to it, running his hand across the edge of the hangers. Once the cast has gone through the racks, the production staff will break them down into pieces to be sold or auctioned for charity or redistributed to costume and prop houses. And all of this, another critical piece of the big, bold story Dan has been telling, will be split up and gone.

There are few notable missing items. The flames sweater from Open Mic. The one with the vertical band of horizontal stripes from Noah’s first episode. That ridiculous leather sweater from the Prosecco-infused lip sync. He can still hear Dan say, “It was lined in silk, which does _not_ breathe!” as though it was punishment chosen by some higher power and not self-inflicted. The fuzzy one from the proposal and the meta one from Meet the Parents are also missing. And the baseball uniform, which. Huh.

Noah remembers a few of the remaining items by their feel as much as their appearance. The black sweatshirt with the eagle and the way the print was just the slightest bit raised under his hands as they glided up Dan’s back during the “I love you” kiss. The pants with the white stripes, bumping against his fingers as he trailed them up and down Dan’s—David’s—thighs during the Stevie’s apartment episode. The sweater with the weird circles on the hips, the startling softness of the mohair that had caused Noah’s hands to wander more than usual during the kiss after Patrick’s date with Ken.

“What am I supposed to do with you here?” Dan had asked as he showed Noah the consistency errors in the day’s footage of the motel room scene. And then, when the corner of his mouth kept twitching and giving him away, Dan added, “And don’t look at me like that.”

The zebra-print sweater is here too. Dan came to his trailer still wearing it after they filmed the scene with the post-soft-launch hug to tell Noah how happy he was with his performance. And then they hugged for the first time not as David and Patrick. And then, since there wasn’t a staged lighting malfunction, Dan kissed him. A quick, hot press of lips and gasp of breath before he pulled away and apologized and said…what he said. About boundaries. Noah remembers the sweater was a little scratchy, scouring the underside of his chin as he hooked it over Dan’s shoulder. That Dan’s face was rough against his. That his mouth was soft and—

“Did you make a decision.” Aaron breaks into his memories when he returns, his presence indicating Noah’s time is up.

“This one,” Noah says, taking the zebra print sweater off the rack.

“O-okay…”

Noah will probably be embarrassed about this the next time he sees Aaron, or fuck, the next time he sees Dan. But for now he just stuffs his free hand in his pocket and tucks the sweater under his arm and holds Aaron’s eye. Like this is normal and exactly what Dan intended when he had the production staff haul all the costumes out here in one place for the cast to take their pick.

“I’ll mark it out for you,” Aaron says finally with a shrug.

The text comes a few hours later during the Raptors game.

** _You took the sweater._ **

It’s not surprising that Dan found out so quickly. There isn’t a thing that happens on set that Dan doesn’t know about, whether he needs to or not. But Noah feels his palms sweat as he stares at the message. He types a reply.

_I took a sweater._

** _I’m coming over._ **

Dan lives thirty minutes away. He’s at Noah’s door in ten.

“Why did you take it?” he asks, standing under the porch light. His hair is mangled the way it gets when he’s up late writing or editing, the product in it remolding it to the clench of his fist. His voice is thin, his eyes a little wild and dark.

And well, it’s all coming to an end. So.

Noah tips his head and leans against the open door frame, letting the smile tickle at the ends of his mouth until Dan’s starts to mirror it. Because it didn’t take long to figure out how to get Dan in the mood to wreck him. “Daniel. After everything… do you really not know?”

Dan inhales, a long shaky breath.

“Can I come in?”


End file.
